Tube by The Dengie Hundred

"Tube is a project that owes everything to Sagome.

In November 2022 I was invited by them to perform at Iklectik with Japan Blues. The support for the evening was another member of the Sagome family, LDGU. On the night LDGU brought along a huge sack of small plastic plumbers tubes, bound with black tape and circled.

When blown through these tiny pipes produced the sound of a light, ethereal drone, almost flute like. The pitch could be modulated by breathing faster or slower through it; a limited but interesting instrument. LDGU handed them out to the crowd and before his set there was a short improvisation with friends using the tubes while wandering around the high beamed Iklectik hall.

I took one, incorporating it into the Japan Blues performance, but by the end of my set it had disappeared from the table I’d placed it on. The tubes were hot property! After the gig I told LDGU that I had lost mine and he generously rushed off to find a replacement – a kind gesture.
Half joking, I told him I would make an album with it…

I spent a long time with the tube, recording the sound of it being blown, scraping the serrated edges, building up a bank of samples to be looped, pitched down, reversed… Maybe I wasn’t joking about this being an album.

I found the limits of the instrument, deciding that rules were made to be broken and a drum machine was needed to give these loops some weight. Then, later, I used the tube to pluck at the bass guitar or to swirl broken crockery. The concept was stretched to its limits too but the tracks that emerged were steeped in the plasticky thrum of the tube.

Having these restrictions was exciting. In a world where every sound imaginable is out there and available, taking the time to really concentrate on something as everyday as a small plastic tube felt liberating.

I decided to sing over a couple of tracks and was thrilled when my good friend Gila (aka Gila Moussou/Gila Du Juice) from cult bands Suspect and Schlaflose Nächte offered to sing too. It is her vocals that close the album.

While I was making this music, I came home to water all over the kitchen floor. After some investigation I found that the overflow pipe in the sink had broken, I pulled it out to discover that it was the tube.

It had been there all along." - The Dengie Hundred

Sagome is an experimental music collective and label promoting DIY gigs and sound projects across borders.

>Free Palestine<

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